Personal threats

[motherslittlehelper1]

Hi

I received a threatening message and feedback on my other ebay ID tonight. I wan't to give the buyer time to rethink what he said and remove the feedback before I let the world see it on here.

Firstly, the buyer purchased the item about 1 month ago and it ended up going to an unpaid item dispute. He later contacted me and said he had trouble with Paypal and would send the $5 in the post. He asked could I remove the unpaid item case when the money arrives in the post and I said "no problem".

I had to take my daughter down to Sydney last Thursday and didn't read my mail until Saturday morning. There was a letter with $5 in it and a PO box to send the item to. The letter had arrived on Thursday or Friday afternoon almost 2 weeks after he had said he would send it. The unpaid item case had already closed on the Friday and I was going to mark it as paid when I packed the item tomorrow morning. I hadn't got around to contacting the buyer because I was away from my PC most of the weekend.

When I sat down tonight to go through the items I had sold over the weekend, I received an Ebay message from the buyer. This is what the message said.

i don't appreciate being ripped off.
see you soon to sort this out.. its gonna cost you more than 5 bucks and a non paying bidder strike against your name..
im going to show you exactly what happened to the last person who tried to rip me off. 

I sent him a reply message and told him I didn't receive the money until Thursday or Friday and the unpaid item case automatically closed. I also told him that the threat was a bit unnesessary and his item was ready to be sent tomorrow. 

I thought I would check my feedback and I noticed he had left a neg feedback, which is

didnt receieve my item, sorting out in person not through ebay AVOID!

I thought to myself that he is pushing things a bit far now, so I sent him an option to remove the neg feedback through the feedback revision. I sent him another message and asked him if he would remove it and told him I would prefer not to get Ebay involved.

My ebay ID this happened to has over 2400 feedback and always receives great feedback for postage time etc

My main problems are

He lives about 20km away judging by his PO box

I don't know where he lives, but he knows where I live. So he has the upper hand there.

I'm not worried about him personally, but I'm concerned he could do damage to my property etc

He has a feedback over 1400 and also sells, so as soon as I request ebay to remove the neg, all hell will break loose

I will give him overnight to sleep on it before I send him another message. Surely he knows he has left himself wide open sending the message through Ebay.  

I really don't wan't to start a war with somebody over $5, especially when they have my postal address

But I'm not going to cop a neg feedback for somebody that pays for an item a month after purchasing and when the case had already closed

Interested to see how others would handle this

[motherslittlehelper1]

I just had a conversation with my best mate, who is a senior sargeant at an inner city Sydney police station.

I sent him a copy of the feedback and the threatening message and asked him if it is worth reporting to the police.

He told me there is no part of the message that directly threatens physical damage to me and the police would just roll their eyes over a $5 item. He said it would just be a civil case and the buyer could deny he wrote the email.

I said what about the part where he said  "I will show you what I did to the last person that tried to rip me off" and my friend said he could have went and kissed the last person.

He added that if he came near my property I could go further with it.

I said to my mate that at least I have told him about it and sent him the messages.

I have tried to get details in the past about people from my mate, without luck, so I didn't ask him to find out the buyers postal address.

I might just report it to Ebay and contact ACORN

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

motherslittlehelper, have just sent you a Private Message

[lyndal1838]

If you really want to get the buyers details I would pull his details from ebay.  That will give you his phone number and suburb.

From there you can try the phone book or the reverse directory.

Even a google search of the name and suburb can prove enlightening.

If the authorities do think it is worth following up they can get the person's details from Australia Post.   He cannot hide from everyone just becaue he has a PO Box.

I honestly think you are giving this whole thing too much time and energy.  Just ignore him and certainly do not send him any emails which may cause him to react badly.

And ring ebay to get the feedback removed....he is certainly not likely to do it no matter how nicely you ask.

[lane-ends]

Do not negotaite with this person, Do not justify, defend, argue  or explain. Otherwise you feed the drama and his personality probably feeds on drama and he will just take it as a challange and it will escalate.

Dispute is closed you haven't reversed it. Refund via paypal as send money, so you have proof if it was ever pushed. Then block and ignore.

Nutcases feed off reactions.

Even if you end up with a defect that ebay wont remove (and they should) it is better than the stress of dealing with a crazy.